All is well on Eye Candy
In the last 24 hours we have sailed 154 miles. The swell is 3 to 3.5M with a wind speed of 18-25K gusting 30K. We are sailing with the storm jib and poled out genoa. It is a lovely sunny 30 degrees, the water temperature is 27.5 degrees and the boat smells as sweet as honey.
The highlight of the day is hearing voices on the VHF radio and seeing three container ships - we must be close to civilization. It's time to put the Champagne in the fridge for tomorrow's arrival.
We did have a mini disaster today. Overnight the lid came off a full bottle of honey in the breakfast cupboard. Bronwyn discovered the mess when all she wanted was her morning cup of coffee. We almost lost a full roll of paper towel; Bronny came to the rescue and with the carving knife reduced the roll to a new and improved mini size - no waste on our boat - apart from the honey!!
Today's background information is on an equipment failure at sea. One of our cruising friends left the Cape Verdes mid December heading for St Lucia in the Caribbean. Two days out and in big seas they reported via the Net that they had lost their rudder. We believe that before commencing the journey, the rudder amongst other things had been checked when the boat was hauled out.
So they were now faced with not being able to go back (against the wind and waves) and at that point a reduced boat speed to 3 knots. They rigged up a drogue at the back of the boat which gave them steerage and speed. A few days later when the sea had settled they could see that in fact they had some rudder. The failure appeared to be at a joint about one third down.
Some yachts in the vicinity stood by with them for moral support and when possible additional fuel drums were transferred across to them. Our friends arrived into St Lucia some sixteen days later. Even on their last night they had to battle squalls, 38 knot winds and a 3M swell - hardly seems fair!
I didn't tell you this at the time for fear of alarming you; what a nerve wracking
experience?. We have been very fortunate and at present Andrew has the fishing rod out trying for a little more fortune.
Cheers from the Atlantic Team
A, B, C
At 11:00 AM15/01/2012 (utc) our position was 13°19.57'N 056°06.23'W
----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com
